Friday, 18 January 2013

Jackie Leven: 'To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour'*

Poster for Two Tiny Selves benefit

the first of all my dreams was ofa lover and his only love,strolling slowly (mind in mind)through some green mysterious landuntil my second dream begins —the sky is wild with leaves; which dance and dancing swoop (and swooping whirlover a frightened boy and girl)but that mere fury soon became silence: in hunger always whom

two tiny selves sleep (doll by doll)

motionless under magicalforeverfully falling snow.and then this dreamer wept: and so she quickly dreamed a dream of spring— how you and i are blossoming.

(e e cummings)

you find me living in forbidden worlds (Forbidden Worlds)

I don't know how to describe what Doll by Doll sounded like
to me when I first heard them. Perhaps poetry’s the easiest way to do it, hence
the preponderance of poetry extracts in this review.

Uncharacteristically smiling

But visually … . Imagine one of those soaring aerial shots
of Middle Earth (aka New Zealand) in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy,
sweeping over snow-topped mountain ranges, dipping into lush valleys, swirling
through towering forests, from the fantastical Rivendell or Lothlorien to the
grim Mordor, you’re halfway there, you have an impression of the vast vistas of
a Doll by Doll soundscape – rich and barren, monumental and minute, extreme
long shot and extreme close-up. They weren’t just a rock band to me, perhaps
because I didn’t see them live, having only learnt they existed after they had
ceased to (as explained in my first Jackie blog but at least I wasn’t as late to the party as I was to the Kinks), until they reformed for what I thought was
one glorious night at the Borderline in 1995 (apparently they played gigs in
Norway and the North of the UK too), but maybe because they didn’t slot into
any particular category (New Wave? Post-punk? Straight rock?) – the best music
never does. They allowed me a glimpse of a different life, extremes of
experience I was still too callow to have encountered but dared to hope I one
day would. Perhaps they didn’t achieve commercial success because there was
just something so uncompromising about them. They weren’t about to make
themselves more palatable to the masses (as the Fleet Foxes did). Theirs
weren’t delusions of grandeur.

The thing about Doll by Doll is that they didn’t depend on
image, and I loved them through listening to cassette tapes made by my friend
(am I really that old?) so had no idea what they looked like. In fact, as I mentioned previously, they looked intimidating – they weren’t part of the
floppy-haired, fringed-scarf brigade. They had no uniform. They weren’t
constructed to appeal to teenage girls (except weird ones like me who got into
them too late). Perhaps that’s one reason they never achieved mainstream
success. They never appeared to court it. Too musically accomplished to fit
into even the post-punk aesthetic, they were a bona fide rock band without any poodle
pretensions.

Ok, more than that – there was total commitment and scary
intensity in their music. You never doubted for a moment that Jackie meant what
he was singing. I never needed to know what they looked like. Once you heard the music, you knew it wasn’t
relevant. I just found this quote from Jackie:

I didn't have a conscious aim in the sense of a manifesto.
But I think I wanted to be a severe writer. I like things that are severe. That
doesn't mean I like harsh music or harsh art. But I love it when someone puts
you into that intense moment of what they're doing. I can't live without that
in my own writing. Nothing would ever shake me from that intense, severe thing
in the song.

This makes it sound like listening to Jackie or seeing him live was a dark and frightening experience when in fact, it was totally joyful, intimate and full of humour.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

*(William Blake, from 'Auguries
of Innocence')

This is what Jackie and Doll by Doll did so well. I can't
say it any better.

I bought all the records (Remember, Gypsy Blood, Doll by
Doll, Grand Passion) (there were still record shops in those days) and immersed
myself in their blend of poesy and power chords, rage and rhythm, delicacy and
dynamism but didn’t hear any more of Jackie until I discovered The Mystery of
Love in 1994.

As we remember him

flowers unfold without being told (The Perfect Romance)

It seemed that Jackie had effortlessly shaken off the
persona of unadulterated and almost completely unknown Rock God to metamorphose
into the poetry-quoting, men’s group-attending singer-songwriter of the
mid-90s. Now I know more about the trauma, pain and heartache he experienced
and rose above along the way but Jackie always had that alchemical ability to
transform tragedy into something astonishing. Although gone, he is far from
forgotten as this memorial show proved. I thought he could cheat death, could
intone ‘and death shall have no dominion’ and the Grim Reaper would dissolve
into ashes like a staked vampire in Buffy. If only.

And his solo work proved just as uncategorisable as Doll by
Doll. He would variously be labelled Celtic folk, folk rock, singer-songwriter, but labels
only diminish him because his scope was simply too broad to be so easily
encompassed and because each term conjures up an image of something that is far
removed from Jackie (perhaps a bleeding heart liberal or someone over earnest
and politically correct – anyone else heard the Hitler’s Henchmen
story?), that cannot begin to describe him.

[He has left his mark in literature too, his song ‘Standing in Another Man's Rain’ being misremembered by Ian Rankin for the title of his
latest book, ‘Standing in Another Man's Grave’, the Rebus character, a Jackie
Leven fan.]

And so it came to pass that one night in November, when TFL
had decided to shut down the Northern Line, some of the faithful made our way
by other means to The Castle Rocks on Finchley Road to attend a memorial
concert to Jackie Leven, all proceeds going to Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research UK.
This was the second tribute get-together of the week, the first being in Botley,
where Jackie lived (visited last year to remember and celebrate with like minds), which was a little too far to travel for one night. I hear
it was also a great success. I didn’t really know whether I could bear to hear
Jackie’s songs without Jackie’s voice. It couldn’t be the same, of course it
couldn’t but in the end it didn’t matter. The passion of the performers and the
power of the songs prevailed.

I was never part of the Church of Leven and normally I’m
anti anything that deifies a human being yet when I think of Jackie and Doll by
Doll, Biblical imagery comes naturally (I’ve already used ‘and so it came to
pass’ and ‘faithful’, I can't seem to help myself). Jackie inspires a sort of
(ir)reverent devotion and brings out the religious in me. This gathering, the
performers, the friends, fans and family, are here to sing Allelujah for
Jackie. There’s a spirit of camaraderie, solidarity among musicians and
audience alike because we have this one important thing in common.

The Castle Rocks

The Castle Rocks interior is adorned with posters for
previous gigs, an illustrated record of its musical heritage. I recently
learned that this beautiful, rambling old building is going to be pulled down.

The performers are (not necessarily in exact order of appearance, apologies if I’ve missed anyone out):

Enjoyed all these performances but Kevin has me in tears
with The Fountain Is Red, the Fountain Is White, a favourite of
mine that I used to request but which I never heard Jackie perform live.
Although heart-breaking to think I’ll never hear Jackie sing this in the flesh, it’s great
to hear someone else’s interpretation and very touching.

Of note are Tom’s version of Farm Boy andSteve and Lucas’s Some Ancient Misty Morning (although this Jackie version is sublime). They also play
a song that sounds like a tribute to Jackie (at least I hear the lines ‘Sweet
Jackie’s Gone’); Joe Shaw tells me it’s called ‘Jackie Leven’s Gone’ but I
can't find a version of it anywhere and I’d love to hear it again.

Then the main event:

then the main event: two tiny selves

(Joe Shaw and David McIntosh from Doll by Doll and Kevin
Foster and Cody)

The focus is on Doll by Doll songs but the band mixes it up
by playing some new tunes. Joe plans to move into more rhythm-based tracks.
Joe’s vocal delivery is powerful enough to stand in for Jackie, who I prefer to
think of as unavoidably delayed.

It’s amazing to hear some of these songs again and difficult
to single out any for particular attention but here I go:

Stripshow (They could have played the whole of Gypsy Blood
and I wouldn’t have complained – it really is an album that needs to be
reappraised as a classic) (Jackie exposes the underbelly of the city, revealing
its minutiae; elegiac in tone and instrumentation, ‘the city was bursting into
flower for the spring’, tenderness and strength intertwined. It’s a great city
song, not as romantic as Lloyd Cole’s Downtown, more akin to Simon and
Garfunkel’s My Little Town; you get the sense that Lloyd’s only playing at
walking on the wild side before hotfooting it back over the
tracks while Jackie is submerged in the urban wilderness. Never a dilettante, our man.)

The Human Face (Brilliant delivery of an awesome song)

Don’t Look Down (A Joe Shaw song I presume?) (I would definitely
like to hear some of the Two Tiny Selves material again)
Main Travelled Roads (Suitably epic)

Palace of Love (Visceral. I never thought I would dance, well it was
more like head-banging. which I haven’t done except in jest since I went
through a thankfully brief thrash metal phase in the early 90s, to Palace of
Love, the typical climax of a Doll by Doll set. Where do you go from here?
Savage, abandoned, pure.)

There are a couple of ladies going wild dancing at the
front. We assume they are huge Jackie fans but in fact, it turns out they’ve
never heard of him or Doll by Doll, just out celebrating a birthday.

Really we need to leave because there’s no tube station
nearby so we have to get a bus to another bus stop and another bus in order to
catch a tube to Charing Cross before our last train leaves at 12.10. We are
still in The Castle at 11.30 I’m sure. If we miss the last train, there is now
no nightbus to Sidcup. We have to get one to New Cross (not the best place to
hang out in the early hours of the morning) and then another from there and will
still have a way to walk home. But then Joe comes back on stage and starts
playing Poortoun and we no longer care.

I suggest my sister ask for Endgame (quoted at the beginning of an earlier blog), a song she's always loved (me too) and a Joe Shaw composition, but he claims not to remember
it. How can you forget such a beautiful song? Next time, I hope.

encore

Poortoun; Call Mother (both great choices for an encore and rapturously received)

(Jackie famously thought encores were a pointless
affectation. Why walk off and wait to be called back on? He would simply play until the place closed which meant we were even less likely to make the last train.)

But there was no time for Gypsy Blood, Teenage Lightning,
Natural or Figure It Out. Or Universal Blue, Marble City Bar, Single Father and The Garden. Jackie was so unbelievably prolific:

One of the many superb Leven albums

Some years ago I noticed that I was writing a lot more songs
than I was ever going to record and get released, especially in these times
where you can only release one studio album every eighteen months. As I am a
writer of genius, this began to worry me more and more. So I went to see my
Cooking Vinyl boss, Martin Goldschmidt, to ask him if I could make more
records. He said no. I said to him 'Look, The Beatles once released four albums
in one year, and nobody said to them, hey that's too many records in one year'.
Martin said 'Jackie, this is not 1967 and you are not The Beatles'. We talked
some more and we agreed that I could make records under a different name - that
name is Sir Vincent Lone.

So this night was about the music but of course Jackie was a
raconteur extraordinaire as well so here are some Leven tales I found on YouTube.

The benefit raised £950 and was a fitting tribute and memorial
to a much-missed musical genius. We remembered; we celebrated; we danced. What
more could we ask?

Just listening to Jackie on YouTube in another of his incarnations, John St. Field, a song called Soft Lowland Tongue and am
surprised to see that it’s had over 3,000 views. He really does have a soft
lowland tongue on this, so young and gentle.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping
slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.